iPhone 6: How to Save Photos From MMS Text Messages

I happen to have three of the most adorable grand-kids you’ve ever laid eyes on – not that I’m biased or anything. They lived with me for the first few years of their lives and recently moved into their own home. The kids are only about six blocks away and I see them several times each week, but there are always things going on that I’m missing. My daughter loves to snap pictures with her iPhone 6, and then send them to me in an MMS message.

I definitely don’t save every single photo she sends me, nor do I save all of the ones that my other daughter sends of various things happening in her life. However, I do tend to keep a lot of them by saving them from the text message to my own device. Doing this is actually fairly simple – once you figure out how. This is yet another frustrating aspect of iOS: figuring out what you’re supposed to do instead of having some button to do it for you.

1. Open Message – If you aren’t already in the message containing the photograph you’d like to save, you’ll want to tap on the “Messages” app to open it and then choose the message which holds your picture.
2. Open the Photo – Tap on the photo you wish to save.
3. Open Options – In the lower left corner, you’ll see a box with an arrow in it. Tap on this box to open up the options.
4. Save Photo – You can now tap on the “Save Image” icon to save the picture to your iPhone 6.

Additionally, you can choose other options, as well:

• Tapping the “Mail” icon allows you to send this image to someone without having to save it to your phone.
• Tapping the “Twitter” icon will allow you to Tweet the photo without first saving it. Additionally, tapping the Facebook icon lets you post it to your Facebook timeline.
• Choosing the “Assign to Contact” option lets you save this snapshot as the default icon for one of your contacts. I just did this last night when my youngest sent me a picture she had taken of herself (a “selfie”) that was adorable. I immediately assigned it to show up every time she calls me.
• Tapping the “Print” option allows you to send the picture to a wireless printing device IF one is already available.
• The “Copy” function allows you to copy the picture to a “clipboard” which then lets you paste it directly into a new text message to someone else if you’d like to.

To access the photos you’ve saved from text messages, tap on the “Photos” app on your iPhone and choose the “Camera Roll” option. You can now enjoy these snapshots anytime you wish.

Let’s hope none of us who are grandmas run out of storage space on our phones thanks to all of the various shots of the little ones!